The Penobscot Expedition (pt. 6)

Read the rest of the series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part 7

Welcome back to the US Naval History podcast, I am your host Chase Dalton. This is part six of the Penobscot Expedition series. We are picking up the story on the eve of total defeat; an absolute disaster is about to befall a trapped American force. It is August 14, 1779 and the Americans have previously been besieging a British fort in Penobscot Bay, modern Maine. The Royal Navy has just arrived at the mouth of the bay and so the Americans are now trapped by British who have sailed into the bay 7 large warships. These warships have more than enough firepower to destroy the American fleet, which consists of 13 much smaller warships and 27 transport ships. It is just after midnight when Commodore Saltonstall, who leads the American naval force, received word that the British had entered the bay. Commodore Saltonstall told General Lovell the bad news, and recommended that the siege of the British fort be immediately lifted, the 1,100 men ashore be loaded onto the transport ships, and the transport ships immediately sail up the Penobscot River away from the British warships.

Minutes after midnight, General Lovell gave the order and by 0100 regimental commanders were waking their troops. Word of the retreat swept through the American camp, and as silently as possible, wrapped darkness and heavy fog, the troops eagerly crept back to the boats. By the time dawn broke all of the men had been loaded onto the transport ships. As the morning fog began to lift, the transports slipped away from shore and towards the back of Penobscot Bay where the Penobscot River led deeper into the Maine wilderness.

An hour later, when General McLean, who led the British force, woke up, the rebel line surrounding his fort seemed too quiet. He ordered a patrol, which quickly discovered that the rebels were no longer there. Heavily armed patrols were quickly sent out to try and intercept the rebels in their retreat, but it was too late.

Among the naval captains which made up Commodore Saltonstall's war council, there were two different strategies proposed to deal with the British fleet. There was no question of fighting them toe-to-toe, but some captains believed that the naval force should retreat up river to find an advantageous position from which they could make a last stand, ideally where the superior firepower of the British fleet would be minimized. Another group advocated for gambling that the expedition ships could sneak past the British fleet and out into the open ocean, where they could disperse and individually make their way back to Boston. In the end, the war council unanimously decided to sail up the Penobscot River and find opportunity to make a last stand... and barring that to at least burn the ships and supplies to prevent them from falling to British hands.

Throughout this retreat, the American battery on Banks Island, which have been captured in the first days of the siege, maintained a steady fire on the three British ships that had previously held such a defensive position under the guns of the British fort. This ended up being vital in preventing the three British warships already in the Penobscot Bay from sallying fourth and disrupting the retreat.

The whole day of the retreat, Commodore Saltonstall and his British counterpart used all of their sailing skill to play for time and distance, using the the tides, the winds, and in the case of many American ships oars, to race to the mouth of the Penobscot River. Saltonstall still knew that he needed to gain the time to offload the men and burn the ships before they could be captured in order to deny the unbelievably valuable ships and supplies from being captured.

Throughout the retreat, only one American vessel so much as fired a single cannon at the pursuing British. This ship, the Hampden, found herself cornered by three British frigates and made a doomed stand. Her Captain wrote of the battle, "my Ship Sailing heavey the Enemy Soon Came up With me three frigetes and fiered upon one after the outher and Cutt away my rigen & Stayes &c and huld me Sundrey times and wounded Sum of my men. I found et Emposable to Joyane our flet agin was abliged to Strik all thow Contrary to my will." And let me tell you, this particular Captain could use some spelling lessons, even by the standards of the 18th century.

The race for the Penobscot River lasted all afternoon against weak winds. At 6pm, the first of the transports entered the narrows leading to the river. With the British warships almost upon them, they grounded themselves, disgorged their soldiers and small sailing crews, and lit their transport ships on fire behind them to prevent the boats from falling into British hands. This had the side effect of allowing the American warships to slip upriver, with the British warships reluctant to follow when that meant pulling close burning ships that were throwing up huge columns of sparks and smoke, plus the occasional secondary explosion as gunpowder stores exploded onboard. After all, the Royal Navy had no intention of burning their ships.

With dark falling and the British temporarily left behind, Commodore Saltonstall had one last hope. He didn't think he would be able to hold the Royal Navy off, but maybe, just maybe, he could find a defensible position upriver, anchor like the British had before reinforcements arrived, and then wait out the British and deal some damage before the longer range guns of the Royal Navy eventually wore his force down. And so, with a few Penobscot Indian allies, General Wadsworth joined joined the canoe expedition to search upriver for a good defensive position.

Meanwhile, on shore, officers tried to assemble the army into a fighting unit. There was an attempt to marshal the men and supplies that had not gone up in smoke, but the militia men, who had already started deserting before British reinforcements arrived, had taken this chance to largely melt away into the woods. The Penobscot Expedition's ground forces largely ceased to exist this point. At midnight, a brig was sunk in the narrows leading to the Penobscot River in an attempt to create a hazard to navigation for the British, but the captains knew it would not be enough. The campaign was officially a disaster.

The next morning, General Lovell came to see Commodore Saltonstall. No spot defensible by ship had been found, but the General had a desperate plan. Lovell wanted to take the guns and ammunition from the ships, plus the few supplies scavenged from the burnt troop transports, and using primarily Saltonstall's sailors who had not fled, create a land fort a few miles upriver. This fort would (in theory) hold out against the superior British, just like British General McLean had held out against him. But this was a fundamentally flawed plan. General McLean was playing for time because he knew that the Royal Navy would be able to lift his siege if he was able to hold out. This would be impossible for the Americans. General Lovell was proposing to build a fort, under British fire, while undermanned, low on supplies, ammunition, and gunpowder, against a superior force, with no hope of reinforcement. There was zero chance of the Continental Navy arrived on the scene to relieve this siege. It was a stupid plan and in the very polite old fashioned way Commodore Saltonstall said so. Saltonstall said his plan was to burn the boats and allow the men to travel back to Massachusetts through the backwoods of New England, rather than be starved out and forced to surrender to the British.

There are some pretty funny accounts of various Generals giving seamanship and naval battle plans to Commodore Saltonstall who seems to very easily explain again and again the elementary flaws in each of the land lubber's plans. My takeaway from these accounts is that the Army elements knew they had messed up badly, and were willing to try anything, whereas Commodore Saltonstall knew how badly the Massachusetts force was beaten and was determined to minimize any more pointless casualties.

In the end, since Commode Saltonstall was the leader of the naval element, he was not required to listen to the "suggestions" of the land element, and so he didn't. Saltonstall began preparations to burn the ship, but did not do so yet. He drew the ships into the best defensive position possible and, and with the ships ready to burn at a moment's notice, prepared to fire on the British when they approached until the last minute. He would do his best to inflict damage, but he also kept his ships close to shore to allow his sailors to escape. No need to waste lives.

However, here we again run into some problems with the unwillingly drafted privateers. Those captains who made up the majority of the fighting force correctly pointed out that they came under a forced contract of eighteen days, but the eighteen days was now long past. They certainly had no interest in fighting for fighting's sake. Even with the plan to get out alive, some of them, and their crews might be captured or die. Better to burn the ships and get out well ahead of the British in their opinions. These captains were overruled by Saltonstall, and some rebellious members of the privateer's crews were slapped in irons and held belowdecks when they showed themselves less than enthusiastic about their Commodore's plans.

That day, the British had not approached for the final kill. But before dawn on August 16, a mysterious series of fires started on the privateering vessels. Very convenient for the privateering captains, I must say. Nonetheless, this was dangerous for the non-privateering warships as well. These were of course wood and cloth ships. All of the cannons were fully loaded in preparation for a fight, and if the barrels got too hot they would fire or explode. The crews aboard the naval vessels tried frantically to put out the fires. It was no use. With most of the vessels that were part of a planned defense burnt to the waterline, the remaining captains made the decision to burn their ships as well. The crews were evacuated and new towering columns of flames leapt into the sky.

This represented the final blow for General Lovell. He had sailed to Penobscot Bay with overwhelming force, and he had wiffed. But then he had been bailed out by a brilliant retreat against overwhelming odds. His militia had melted into the woods and so could not make an independent last stand against the British, and so he had pinned his hopes on an expensive last stand by the navy to salvage a shred of honor, but that had literally just gone up in smoke. He knew that he was going to face hard questions back home. But he had one last hope, a shred of an idea...he would travel upriver to the Penobscot Indian villages to make a treaty with them against the British. Why he thought this would work after the Indians had just watched the Americans get thrashed by the British I have no idea... but hey...it's an idea.

And this is where I'm going to leave this episode. The retreat was a success despite the lack of planning and every other thing working against it. Men and supplies were lost, it devolved into a complete rout once the men's feet touched the shore, but very few lives were lost in a situation that could have gone much more badly for the Americans. All things considered, the retreat was a moderate success.

In the next part, I'm going to wrap the story up with the story of the hundreds of men who found their way back home in some combination of tragic, funny, and circuitous ways, and of the consequences back home. I've previewed this before, but this much money being lost and this big of a military failure means somebody has to take the blame. The state of Massachusetts is practically bankrupted after paying out the privateering captain's for their ships and supplies, and so a circular game of finger pointing and letter writing began almost immediately. Actually, it had started even before the British arrived as everyone in charge saw there was a good chance things would go south. But all of that gets to wait for next week and part seven of this series which has gotten longer and longer. I hope you've enjoyed it thus far!